[362] Mémoires de Louis XIV., vol. ii. p. 525.
[363] M. Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du Lundi, vol. v.
[364] Fouquet, who had purchased the Vicomté of Melun, replaced the old château by a magnificent edifice, which has become celebrated from the fête given there to Louis XIV. It is the chef-d’œuvre of the architect Le Vau, and astounds one by its grand and noble proportions. The exterior is profusely covered with sculpture, and the splendour of the interior is fully in keeping with that of the outside, the decorations of the principal apartments having been entrusted to the most celebrated painters of the age. The pleasure-grounds, which cover several hundred acres, were planted by Le Nôtre, and are laid out in straight lines, after the usual custom of the seventeenth century.
The mémoires of the time are filled with accounts of Fouquet’s fête to Louis XIV., August 17, 1661; and La Fontaine has described it both in prose and verse. Fouquet’s fall had long since been prepared by LeTellier and Colbert, and was already resolved upon when Louis XIV. went to seat himself at his table; but the luxury of this abode and the splendour of the reception singularly increased the irritation of the monarch, who was well aware that it was paid for out of money of which the State had been defrauded. Fouquet was arrested on September 5, only eighteen days after this fête.
The château of Vaux, which, save the ravages of time, is still in much the same state as Fouquet left it, is situated about four miles to the north-east of Melun, on the road from Paris to Meaux.—Trans.
[365] See Histoire de Colbert, by M. Pierre Clément, vol. i.; Mémoires sur Nicolas Fouquet, by M. Chéruel; La Police sous Louis XIV., by M. P. Clément, pp. 1-61, and the Appendices to vols. viii. and ix. of M. Chéruel’s edition of the Mémoires de Saint-Simon, vol. viii. p. 447, and vol. ix. p. 414.
[366] We shall prove this hereafter.
[367] As M. Chéruel has remarked (Mémoires sur Nicolas Fouquet, vol. ii. p. 173, note 3) the letter which is relied on in order to support this allegation is far from authentic. It has been transcribed in the Manuscrits Conrart (vol. xi. folio, p. 152), with many other letters “which are said to have been found in Fouquet’s casket.” But we know what took place with reference to this famous casket. Greedy of scandal, and not finding sufficient in the real letters which were published at that time, the courtiers invented a very great number, attributing them to ladies of the court, whose names they gave. They were collected with care, in the papers of Conrart and Vallant, and have thus been handed down to us: (Manuscripts of the Arsenal for the Papiers de Conrart and of the Imperial Library for those of Vallant). Such was the publicity given to these letters, that at the commencement of the trial the Chancellor Séguier thought it his duty to declare to the court that they were forgeries: See M. Chéruel’s work already referred to, vol. ii. p. 289, et seq., and M. Feuillet de Conches’ Causeries d’un Curieux, vol. ii. p. 518, et seq.
[368] “Do not fear that he will escape,” said they at Angers to D’Artagnan: “we will strangle him first:”—Journal d’Olivier d’Ormesson, published by M. Chéruel in the Collection des Documents Inédits sur l’Histoire de France, vol. ii. p. 99. The same hatred manifested itself at Tours, whence it was necessary to set out with Fouquet at three o’clock in the morning to escape the threats of the people. At Saint-Mandé and Vincennes it was the same: Récit Officiel de l’Arrestation de Fouquet, by the Registrar Joseph Foucault:—Imperial Library, Manuscripts, No. 235-245 of the 500 of Colbert.
[369] Mémoires sur Nicolas Fouquet, vol. ii. p. 386.